Youth volleyball club teams up with church to build sand courts

Pool pals

David Bebee/Record staff

Sisters Kayla (left) and Alexis Gallant, members of Scorpians Youth Volleyball Club, club president Paul Langan, beach volleyball head coach Janet Cobbs-Mulholland and Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church lead pastor Scott Roe. The Cambridge church announced plans to build five sand courts on its front lawn.

CAMBRIDGE — The Cambridge Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church should be a lot easier to locate after it allows the Scorpions Youth Volleyball Club to build five sanded courts on its front lawn.

Construction of the courts, four solely for volleyball and one for multi-sport, is expected to cost $30,000 and begin in late April with a completion date tentatively planned for May 15.

C.O. Construction of Cambridge will build the courts which will be paid for by the Scorpions.

Scorpions Volleyball provides youth under-18 with an opportunity to learn and play volleyball indoors and on the beach, at the house league level or competitive.

The church’s lead pastor Scott Roe was happy to be able to support a Scorpions club who has struggled to find enough court time for its growing number of players due to the limited number of courts available in Cambridge.

“We want to be good neighbours and use this property for the greater good of the community,” said Roe, 53, while announcing the news at the church carefully tucked away at 147 Elgin St. N on Tuesday. “So when the idea was brought up I thought we have lots of space that could be perfect. The property will be utilized.”

Fellow church member Larry Petersen, 44, first proposed the site as a potential solution to Scorpions President Paul Langan’s court availability problem last summer, six months after Petersen’s daughter Tove, 13, had joined the Scorpions.

Petersen doesn’t think Langan took him seriously at first but in December he received a phone call. After checking out the site together on Christmas Eve, and with Roe having cleared the plans with the church’s board, Langan and the Scorpions we’re on board.

“The reason we started this whole thing was to get some kids off the couch and provide them some physical fitness in a fun and affordable fashion,” says Langan, who founded the club in 2010 and has seen its number grow from the teens to close to 250 youth players.

“What I misjudged was how many people wanted that.”

Head coach of the beach program is Janet Cobbs-Mulholland, a 1992 Olympic Bronze Medal winner, former assistant coach of the University of Waterloo’s women’s team and the wife of four-time all-American and former Canadian National Team player Jason Mulholland of Cambridge.

Cobbs-Mulholland, 46, currently has two daughters playing Scorpions Volleyball and is entering her second year working with the Scorpions.

“I like to say I bring a coaches and player’s perspective,” Cobbs-Mulholland said. “I try to bring, technical wise, what has worked for me and what I’ve seen work in the past for those I’ve coached. “

To help the Scorpions afford the construction expenses they are seeking sponsors who can pay for the naming rights to either the whole court complex or individual courts, be featured on the court’s posts, or have a logo put on team’s jerseys.

Regardless of what the court’s end up being called, 18-year-old Alexis Gallant is excited to get out and put them to good use.

“I love it, especially in the summer because you’re out having fun and even if you’re losing your still on the beach,” said Gallant, a member of the Scorpions since its inception and a Grade 12 student at Jacob Hespeler. “It’s a win-win.”

Win-win was the feeling going around for both members of the church and Scorpions who were in attendance at the announcement on Tuesday.

“I shouldn’t say this while in a church, but it really is a bit like heaven when you’re out on that property and the sun’s coming down,” Langan says.